Graduate Student Senate heard from the Student Health Insurance Administrator Anna Casteel during the general body meeting Tuesday.
Casteel discussed the Student Health Insurance Survey that went out Oct. 9 and ended on Oct. 24.
“What we are trying to figure out overall is if students that are insured with this policy want to spend money to have the policy and pay less when they actually use it or do they want to pay less to have the insurance and actually have greater expenses when they use the insurance,” Casteel said.
Casteel said the survey was sent out to 20,386 students through email. Only 7,144 actually opened the email and 357 surveys were done in total. Casteel said this was not the response she was looking for.
The largest voting group overall was graduate students, Casteel said. Combined with medical students, the two groups made up 80 percent of the total surveys completed.
Casteel said she does believe they got valuable information from the surveys because of the 357 that were filled out. Whenever someone didn’t understand the question, they left it blank instead of filling it in with random answers.
After Casteel’s presentation, GSS President Maria Modayil presented information about making dry food packages for the Baker Food Pantry.
Modayil said she isn’t sure how much the project will cost, so they are allocating $200 now and in the future the general body can decide to allocate more depending on how the public responds to the packages.
“I think it is a good thing to do for our community, and I am hoping graduate students take advantage of it,” Modayil said.
Michael Senteney, vice president for finance, presented the budget report to the body.
“The issue right now is that the carry forward still has not hit, and so we are in about (minus) $5,000,” Senteney said. “And so we started with a balance of $0 and that $5,000 hit us hard.”
Senteney said the body is supposed to have a $2,000 budget. Last year, GSS purchased graduate student orientation bags which were given out to students for free. The $5,000 is the price for these bags. Instead of it being charged to the budget last year, it was charged this semester. Creating these bags and giving them out for free is a project that began three years ago.
“It is a way of advertising ourselves, but also it shows our commitment to sustainability,” Modayil said.
The general body expressed some concerns about allocating money when the body has a negative budget balance.
“I think it is also really frustrating for me that because things didn’t happen like it should have happened because of someone else’s fault and not our own that we can’t function as a body,” Modayil said.
The only way for the body to remain relevant is to be able to provide graduate student organizations with funding, Modayil said. Right now, it is difficult for GSS to do that with a negative balance.
The body also discussed the three members who will be attending the National Association for Graduate-Professional Students Conference in Arkansas. Modayil, Senteney and Susan Ngbabare, Patton College of Education senator, will be attending the conference.
